connecting a second wi-fi router your home network

The situation: in addition to the router that serves your home with internet you’ve another router that could perhaps improve your wireless or wired coverage. The extra router could be any spare wi-fi router or maybe one that offers better, stronger wi-fi. To avoid frustration we need to understand how to set it up correctly. The things we’re dealing with involve WAN ports vs LAN ports and DHCP on or off. Anything else can be left alone.

The better way to set up a second router

Summary:

• Connect main, gateway router LAN port to second router LAN port
• Set up your own wifi SSIDs and passwords on the second router. They can be the same or different to the gateway router. The wifi channels should be different or auto.
• Connect to the second router wifi and access the second router admin panel via a browser – you may change the time; reboot time; automatics update. If there’s a setting you’re not sure about (eg UPnP or Firewall) leave it alone. You might find a setup wizard. If it offers the make the router a ‘wireless access point’ – that’s what you want.
• Write down the second router IP address (on a sticker). This IP might be different to the current network eg 192.168.3.1 – as that’s on the same subnet it’s OK to leave it so. Save/backup the configuration as a file on your PC.
• Lastly turn off DHCP on the second router but know that at this point forward you might not be able to access its admin panel…
• … Actually you can access the second router admin panel via a browser and its IP, but first directly connect to the second router via its wifi or by ethernet cable and then try. This can fail when you’re in any way also connected to the main router network.
• You’re done. The second router is acting as a ‘switch’ and a wireless access point. It may show ‘No Internet connection as an error – but ignore it, that’s OK. It isn’t handing out wrong IP addresses over DHCP. Only the gateway router is doing DHCP.

Background:

We need to know the local IP address for the ‘first’ router which is the entry and exit point for Internet. This is also called the gateway address and we use it to access the gateway admin pages. Typically the gateway IP address is 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0 with the subnet of 255.255.255.0. (Sometimes the gateway network is written as 192.168.1.1/24 or 192.168.0/24 where ’24’ is shorthand for the subnet). The gateway router will appear not to know the second router as this is on a weird IP such as 192.168.3.1

Ideally you need connect an ethernet cable from one of the gateway router’s regular LAN ports to the LAN port of the second router. In another slightly problematic scenario (below) you connect instead to the WAN port of the second router. If you cannot run a cable the second router must be set up as a wireless repeater and hopefully it has this feature.

My second router is a Huawei AX3 Quad core which is able to provide a good wifi signal. A very long cable runs from the gateway router to its LAN port. The AX3 router can be setup if you connect to its wireless SSID and open a browser pointing to its initial IP address of 192.168.3.1 Out of the box the AX3 or second router is set to hand out IP addresses. You want to turn DHCP off but only after you’ve set up a few things, like wifi on it – as in the summary list above.

The problematic way to set up the second router

• Connect main, gateway router LAN port to second router WAN port.
• Set up your own wifi SSIDs and passwords on the second router. They can be the same or different to the gateway router. The wifi channels should be different or auto.
• Use second router wifi to access the second router admin – selectively change a few things such as time; reboot time; updates. If not sure eg UPnP or Firewall just leave them alone. You might have a setup wizard where you can select ‘wireless access point’ – that’s what you want.
• Write down the second router IP address (on a sticker). This IP might be different to the current network eg 192.168.3.1 it’s on the same subnet so that’s OK. Save/backup the configuration as a file on your PC.
• Leave DHCP on the second router. If you want to you can adjust the IP ranges on each router so that they don’t conflict.
• You’re done. The second router is running a second network. It’s a DHCP server, a ‘switch’ and a wireless access point. It will not show ‘Internet disconnected’ errors. It is handing out IP addresses over DHCP. Devices will connect to it and the Internet. Devices on different networks will NOT be able to connect to each other so if you’ve smart devices, cameras and suchlike here begins your problems.

Background

A lot of thought is needed if you’ve two routers each running DHCP servers handing out IP addresses.

For example set up the gateway router (on say 192.168.1.1) DHCP to hand out addresses in the range 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.99. Set up the second router (on say 192.168.1.101) DHCP to hand out addresses in the range 192.168.1.102 to 192.168.1.199.

Alternatively, to create more problems to solve*, set up the gateway router similarly but set up the second router (on say 192.168.3.1) DHCP to hand out addresses in the range 192.168.3.2 to 192.168.3.99

*The result of using the alternative 192.168.3.1 may run two networks on your home LAN. It’s a lottery as to whether your laptop connects to one or the other – but it will not matter if you simply want Internet access. If you’ve smart devices, NAS storage and cameras you’ll meet situations where you can’t access them and it’s because you’re on the other network. In short, using a second router like this, with DHCP on and the WAN port connected to the gateway is troublesome. I’d keep it simple as in the first case unless you’re a network wizard who I’ll bow to.